North Carolina man sentenced in Louisiana extortion case

NEW ORLEANS - A North Carolina businessman has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for extorting a Tulane University student for sex and similarly coercing a 15-year-old boy.

Federal prosecutors said in a news release 51-year-old J. Michael Fowler, of Charlotte, was taken into custody last year in a sting operation organized by FBI agents who had assumed the Tulane student's digital identity.

In court papers made public this week, Fowler' pleaded guilty in late May.

U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle sentenced Fowler on Wednesday.

The FBI accused Fowler of blackmailing the Tulane student with naked photographs for years to keep her in a sexual relationship that began when she was 16.

Court document unsealed this week show Fowler also had targeted a 15-year-old North Carolina boy in August 2014 and coerced him to have oral sex.